five

on my first day of high school i was walking down the hall, looking for my geometry class.  according to my printed schedule, it was in room 203, yet at the end of the hall where the room should have been was room 205.  the sign above the door said "euclidian geometry", further adding to my confusion, as i was just looking for regular geometry.  after rechecking everything a few times over, i decided to take the risk and go into the room.

the room number had been changed to "205" because the teacher, mr. lahlum, had noticed that five appeared quite often in geometry: there were five big theorems, five basic shapes, five ways to prove parallel lines were equal, and so on; enough to fill up both sides of a blue piece of paper, anyway.
and so five became the magic number.  when the local grocery store had "cookie day" and sold chocolate chip cookies for a nickel each, mr. lahlum would buy a large bag and go around the room, asking what your favorite number was.  if you said, "five," you got a cookie.  simple as that.  we even learned how to say it right: you had to put a little flair into it, so that it became "fiiive", as if you were talking to the fonze.  naturally, may fifth (5/5) was a huge party day and the officially-degreed unofficial birthday of euclid, the father of modern geometry.  it was so engrained into us that we took notice whenever we would hear the word "five."

not surprising then, when i noticed that my blog was turning fiiive.

five years ago tonight i posted my first blog post.

well, kind of.  i was really nervous about starting this whole thing and so waited until i had five posts written before i went public with them and actually sent out an email announcing to people that i had a blog up.  it just seemed kind of lame to share your blog with only one post up; like opening a store but having nothing on the shelves except a jar of peanut butter.

i was nervous, too, because i didn't know what to write.  i was inspired by emily, who was writing a blog detailing the adventures of her life at a crazy taiwan-owned company while balancing pregnancy and a husband about to go to dental school and asking for peoples' teeth.  i was a camera assistant, trying to figure out where my life was going and a lot of my posts were just ramblings and randomness, and i soon found that there were people writing that but doing a much better job of it.  ; )

dang.  five years.  that's half a decade.  i like what this has become.  i don't know if i could describe it in any particular way that would distinguish it from any of the other two billion blogs out there except to say that it's mine.  i've gotten better at formulating ideas and paring them down to what they need to be and i've said it before: if i wasn't a writer i'd still be a reader.  i am proud of this darn thing.

according to the archives, i wrote more that first year than any year since.  understandably, as i've been rereading those dusty pages again recently, a lot of it isn't my best, but it would be a shame if that was the best and that it's been a steady decline since.  many of them are devoid of brevity but there are still some gems tossed throughout that i enjoy going back and looking over them.  i've already given a look back at the best and most notable posts on here, although the idea of making a list of my five lamest posts is now kind of tempting.

sheep go to heaven.

yea.